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American Protestantism 1 Running Head AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 1 RUNNING HEAD: AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM The Implicit Legacy of American Protestantism Eric Luis Uhlmann† HEC Paris Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks† University of Michigan Ross School of Business † Author contribution was equal WORD COUNT: 5,582 CONTACT: Eric Luis Uhlmann HEC Paris - School of Management Management and Human Resources Department 1, Rue de la Libération 78351 Jouy-en-Josas France Tel: 33 (0)1 39 67 97 44 E-mail: [email protected] AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 2 Abstract The heritage of a nation founded by devout Puritan-Protestants has had wide ranging effects on U.S. culture and, as experimental evidence suggests, continues to exert an implicit influence on the feelings, judgments, and behaviors of contemporary Americans. The United States is distinguished by a faith in individual merit and traditional values uncommon among economically developed democracies, both of which have been traced, in part, to the moral ideals of the founding Protestant communities. Calvinist Protestantism has further profoundly shaped American workways, including the moralization of work and the manifestation of professional norms that prescribe impersonal and unemotional workplace interactions. The implicit influence of traditional Protestant beliefs extends not only to devout American Protestants, but even non-Protestant and less religious Americans. AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 3 “It seems to me, that I can see the entire destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who came ashore.” -- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840/1990) Founder effects in evolutionary biology occur when a new population is established by a small group from a much larger population (Mayr, 1952, 1954). Such effects often take place when groups migrate over long distances and settle in a new location. These early representatives of a series have disproportionate effects on the characteristics of all subsequent generations. As a consequence, the characteristics of the new population can be distinct from the original parent population. Mayr (1954) used his theory to explain variations in the morphology (size, bill shape, and feathering) of birds of the same species that colonized isolated islands in small groups. However, founder effects are also observed in human populations. For example, one of the British settlers who colonized the island of Tristan da Cunha in 1814 carried a gene for retinitis pigmentosa. Even today, blindness due to this disease is ten times as common on Tristan da Cunha as in Britain (Thompson, 1978). Although usually thought of in the context of biology, founder effects are also relevant to our understanding of culture (Cohen, 2001; Oishi, 2010). In other words, the early members of a culture may lay the foundation for the traditions and values of all subsequent generations. Because children and younger newcomers tend to assimilate, albiet imperfectly, to the traditions of the broader society, initial values are absorbed and carried forward (Cheung, Chudek, & Heine, 2011; Lim, Yeh, Liang, Lau, & McCabe, 2009; Minoura, 1992; Tsai, Ying, & Lee, 2000). Thus, we may observe a certain degree of cultural inertia such that the earliest communities of an emerging society exert a disproportionate influence on the culture’s fundamental nature. AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 4 The present empirical review shows that a heritage as a nation founded by Puritan- Protestant settlers has had wide ranging effects on U.S. culture, and despite the worldwide trend toward modernization and urbanization appears to continue to exert an implicit influence on the feelings, judgments, and behaviors of contemporary Americans. In the United States, trends towards hedonism in popular culture co-exist with deep seated moral intuitions based on the traditional values of the founding communities. In making this case we draw on both international surveys and experimental laboratory research. As we describe, American values are distinguished by strikingly traditional morals relative to other contemporary economically developed democracies as well as a strong faith in individual merit, both of which are traceable in part to the founding Protestant communities. Calvinist Protestantism has also profoundly shaped American workways, including the moralization of work and professional norms that prescribe impersonal and relatively unemotional workplace interactions. Consistent with prior research and theory on implicit social cognition (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), an unconscious influence of traditional Protestant beliefs can and does appear to occur even among individuals whom explicitly reject traditional values, and therefore extends even to Americans with no explicit religious beliefs or affiliations. Thus, the cultural legacy of America’s founding communities and the operation of basic social cognitive processes help explain the persistence of Protestant influences in the contemporary United States. America’s Protestant Heritage The Protestant Reformation began in Europe in the 16th century and cleaved the world of Western Christianity in two, leading to political upheaval, religious wars, and cultural changes. Protestant leaders such as Martin Luther and John Calvin decried what they saw as the AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 5 corruptions and heresies of the Catholic Church, such as the sale of indulgencies and clerical offices, as well as rituals and doctrines they felt only distracted from the pursuit of true faith. The English Reformation resulted in the overthrow of Catholic authority and the establishment of the Anglican Church. However, some dissenters felt the Anglican Church had not gone nearly far enough in its reforms. Calling themselves “The Godly,” they advocated for greater piety, spiritual purity, and adherence to the ideals of the Protestant reformers. Their political opponents derisively labeled them “Puritans,” branded them religious fanatics, and retaliated against them by passing laws restricting their religious practices. Fleeing such persecution and hoping to create a spiritually pure utopia, many separatist Puritans emigrated to America, establishing some of the earliest British colonies in the New World. Alexis de Tocqueville (1840/1990) likened the influence of Puritanism on the culture of America to a fire set on a high hill whose light “still tinge(s) the furthest reaches of the horizon” (p. 31-32). Even at U.S. independence in 1776, over a century and a half after the founding of Plymouth colony, three-quarters of Americans were Puritans (Gelertner, 2007; Morone, 2003). Scholars of American culture have written that Puritan leaders were “as close to an intellectual ruling class as America has ever had” (Hofstadter, 1962, p. 59), and that “Before the Civil War, Puritanism remained the country’s dominant spiritual influence” (Gelertner, 2007, p. 153). Although few, if any, Americans explicitly view themselves as Puritans today, the Puritan-Protestant tradition appears to have had an indelible influence on the values and ideals of the United States. In a cultural analog of the founder effects observed in evolutionary biology (Cohen, 2001), the Puritan-Protestant settlers and their spiritual descendants set the tone of American culture for centuries to come. Although further waves of immigration and myriad AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 6 other events and influences have likewise shaped U.S. culture, the legacy of the Puritan- Protestant founding remains evident today. Implicit Cultural Cognition One psychological reason traditional cultural values can persist so stubbornly is the nature of implicit social cognition. Contemporary dual process models distinguish between explicit (i.e., deliberative, controlled, and logical) and implicit (i.e., spontaneous, intuitive, and automatic) attitudes and beliefs (Epstein, 1994; Fazio, 1990; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). Consistent with a dual process framework, striking dissociations are often observed between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes (Nosek, 2005; Rudman, 2004). Such dissociations can occur when individuals who explicitly reject cultural beliefs nonetheless internalize them at an implicit level. For example, even individuals who consciously reject cultural stereotypes can think and act in accordance with such stereotypes when they are implicitly activated (Bargh, 1999; Devine, 1989; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). In one study, for example, college students subliminally exposed to African-American faces were subsequently more likely to behave in a hostile manner, in line with cultural stereotypes of Black Americans as hostile and aggressive (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996). The influence of traditional Protestant religious beliefs on contemporary Americans has been shown to operate implicitly as well (Sanchez-Burks, 2002, 2005; Uhlmann, Poehlman, & Bargh, 2009; Uhlmann, Poehlman, Tannenbaum, & Bargh, 2011). In certain instances, this influence takes the form of automatic associations which the person does not consciously endorse (e.g., an association between work and divine salvation; Uhlmann et al., 2011). AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM 7 However, it more often takes the form of unrecognized influences on conscious judgments. Haidt (2001, p. 818) describes “the sudden appearance in consciousness of a moral judgment, including an affective valence (good-bad, like-dislike), without any conscious awareness of having gone through steps of search, weighing evidence, or inferring a conclusion.”
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